The present disclosure relates generally to sensors and, more particularly, to sensors configured to store and provide patient-related data.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
A wide variety of devices have been developed for non-invasively monitoring physiological characteristics of patients. For example, an oximetry sensor system may non-invasively detect various patient blood flow characteristics, such as the blood-oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in blood, the volume of individual blood pulsations supplying the tissue, and/or the rate of blood pulsations corresponding to each heart beat of a patient. During operation, the oximeter sensor emits light and photoelectrically senses the absorption and/or scattering of the light after passage through the perfused tissue. A photo-plethysmographic waveform, which corresponds to the cyclic attenuation of optical energy through the patient's tissue, may be generated from the detected light. Additionally, one or more physiological characteristics may be calculated based upon the amount of light absorbed or scattered. More specifically, the light passed through the tissue may be selected to be of one or more wavelengths that may be absorbed or scattered by the blood in an amount correlative to the amount of the blood constituent present in the blood. The amount of light absorbed and/or scattered may then be used to estimate the amount of blood constituent in the tissue using various algorithms.
For example, a reflectance-type sensor placed on a patient's forehead may emit light into the site and detect the light that is “reflected” back after being transmitted through the forehead region. The amount of light detected may provide information that corresponds to valuable physiological patient data. The data collected by the sensor may be used to calculate one or more of the above physiological characteristics based upon the absorption or scattering of the light. For instance, the emitted light is typically selected to be of one or more wavelengths that are absorbed or scattered in an amount related to the presence of oxygenated versus de-oxygenated hemoglobin in the blood. The amount of light absorbed and/or scattered may be used to estimate the amount of the oxygen in the tissue using various algorithms.
The sensors generally include one or more emitters that emit the light and one or more detectors that detect the light. The emitters and detectors may be housed in a reusable or disposable oximeter sensor that couples to the oximeter electronics and the display unit (hereinafter referred to as the monitor). The monitor may collect historical physiological data for the patient, which may be used by a clinician or medical personnel for diagnostic and monitoring purposes. Patients are often moved to various locations during treatment. For example, a patient may be transported in an ambulance, delivered to an emergency room, moved to an operating room, transferred to a surgical recovery room, transferred to an intensive care unit, and then moved to a nursing floor or other locations. Thus, the patient may be moved between various locations within the same hospital, or between different hospitals. The sensor employed to monitor the condition of the patient may be adhesive in its attachment and remain with the patient. The monitors, however, may be local to particular locations within a facility or vehicle. Thus, the sensor may be disconnected from the monitor at a departure site and reconnected to another monitor at a destination site. Consequently, patient-related data (e.g., historical physiological data) collected by the monitor at the departure site may be unavailable to the clinician attending the patient at the destination site.